Last Night at the Circle Cinema (15 page)

“Thanks, Queen of Honest.” I put my hand in front of my mouth and breathed, testing the nastiness. “I'm like an eight out of ten for gross.” Olivia unzipped the small pocket at the front of her backpack. “You're like a CIA agent or something with all your shit in there,” I told her.

“I hardly think spearmint gum and a wet wipe qualifies as covert special agent gear.” She held out a piece of gum and I accepted it, the mint finally covering the sour taste on my tongue. Livvy looked out at the rain-wet glass, the eeriness almost suffocating us, and pointed to the windows. “Even my car headlights look sinister.”

I nodded. “Should we ...” I didn't complete the sentence because Olivia turned to glare at me, her eyes like the car's headlights, half-lidded and suspicious.

“You don't get to leave,” she said, her hands tugging at her hair in frustration. “Don't you see that now?”

She was so authoritative that I found it grating. “I'm not trapped here!” I clenched my hands into useless little fists. “There's nothing to say I can't walk out that door and be home with a cup of tea in hand in under an hour.”

“You don't drink tea.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “There's nothing keeping me here.”

Her face flushed, her eyes wide as though I'd slapped her.

21

Livvy

“You know what your problem is?” I shouted at Codman. The words pushed out of my throat and flew at him like insistent crows, black and angry. “You're the son of two shrinks who can't express himself. God forbid you see this thing through, right? How horrible for you NOT to be able to bail. Just take off before you've had to see the point of the evening. Just leave it for Livvy, she'll deal with it. Isn't that your usual plan?”

Codman put his hands out from the ticket booth, his face serious. “You have no idea what I've been through, so I'm not sure you're qualified to comment on
my
night.”

“Oh, give me a break,” I said. “You don't think I know what you've been through? I'm like the only other person on this planet who knows.”

Quickly, before Codman could stop me, I grabbed the package, sprinting away before he could object. Possibly I knew he wouldn't, and I was saving myself from further humiliation.

I got as far as the women's bathroom when I realized I'd left the CD and grabbed only the empty envelope. I let it go onto the floor, and then thought better of it. I crouched down, about to grab the paper.

On my knees, I heard it.

A cry.

A baby?

My mind raced. Had Bertucci stolen a human baby and left it in a deserted movie theater for us to find? I shook my head but knew it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility. That's how far Bertucci could go. He could have hacked into the Brookville General Hospital system and figured out how to gain access to the labor and delivery ward and faked an ID and—the next cry made my imagination stop.

It was high pitched and unrelenting and coming from a door near the women's bathroom. It was a door I'd never noticed on our regular movie outings, but this night was bound to do that, to show us things we'd previously ignored or tried not to think about.

I had no choice but to open the door. I did, but the space was completely lightless and the terror registered immediately. I could have yelled over my shoulder for Codman. I could have yelled out to Bertucci, angry and confused about why he'd done this, what he expected of me.

But I didn't. I just stood there, my breath coming fast, echoing because I knew I'd follow the crying, knew I'd take stairs and see what was there.

22

Codman

Olivia took off, leaving me to deal with the fallout. Who could blame her? I sort of owed her one on that front. She wasn't, by nature, a deserter. She was the one who lingered after the funeral. I took off as soon as I could, heaving up the cold cuts I'd plucked from the deli trays on Bertucci's kitchen counter. Livvy had a black piece of torn fabric pinned to her shirt. She saw me eying her, and for once it wasn't her breasts I was stuck on. “Kriah,” she told me, scrubbing a dish that was already clean, just to be doing something. “You tear a piece of clothing or ribbon. Leave it to the Jews to know how to mourn.” Had she been waiting for me to do the same? Express my grief and anger and fucking loss by ripping my shirt?

I knew she'd stay and clean up, that somehow she made it okay for me to leave in my unripped suit, like even my mourning was defective. Livvy could tough it out, could wait and hang on. She waited for Bertucci after college classes sometimes or stuck around at Bertucci's, lingering to make sure everything was tucked back in place. She was a stayer.

Olivia had plodded through countless baseball practices when my car was totaled, waiting just so she could give me a ride. Had I thanked her? Probably. But not enough. Possibly I was pissed at Bertucci—he'd been the one to wreck the car in the first place.

I'd taken the blame for that one, and Bertucci had never repaid me.

He was a solid driver, careful despite being an adrenaline junky.

“I wouldn't lend that guy your shoes, let alone your car,” my stepbrother Dan had told me.

“His feet are way bigger than mine,” I'd answered just to piss him off. Dan was a local cop who delighted in checking up on me or weighing in on his Brookville predictions—who was a hop, a skip, and a jump away from being a felon, who was most likely to shoplift.

“He's not borrowing it for long,” I'd told Dan as I lobbed my keys to Bertucci. It was almost early spring. He felt like a road trip, he'd said, another one of his elaborate ideas only this time I wasn't invited. Not that he'd said as much but there was something in his voice that let me know not to ask.

“I'll have her back safe and sound ASAP,” he'd said and slid into the driver's seat, the window rolled down even though it was March. He idled in the driveway. “What, you're gonna watch me go?”

I'd turned around, as if Bertucci taking off out of my driveway in my own shitty car that I'd saved for and bought only that fall was too personal for me to see.

Of course, the car never made it back. Dan called the house, all authoritative and serious. “There's been an accident.”

My dad—Dan's biological father—stood up calmly from the dinner table and motioned for me to come to the phone. The pasta I'd eaten threatened to come up as I reached for the receiver. I expected Dan to launch into details about a crash, Bertucci in critical condition at Brookville General, casualties. But it was Bertucci's voice on the line.

“Hey, there, friend. Let me tell you a story ....”

It was idiotic, really. He'd found a discarded GPS at the junkyard. “They'd just left it in the car to rot.”

“That's what you were doing? Driving my car to visit dead cars at Smitty's?” I'd only been to Smitty's once, with Bertucci's father right after we'd become friends. Before his drinking sort of took over, Bertucci's dad had a penchant for fixing things, and we'd gone in search of some obscure engine part on the way to pick up a pizza. It was a fun day mainly because going to a dump was nothing my parents would have done for kicks, but by the end of it, when his dad refused to give up searching and the light was gone and we were cold and hungry, I had no desire to be there or to go back to Bertucci's. I just wanted to bail. The sun had set on the half-beat cars, a few of them burned out, most stripped of useable parts. The newer ones were dropped right on top of the older ones as if to claim they were better, though I guessed they'd end up just like the junk underneath, forgotten about and skeletal.

“I was not planning a Smitty's run, though I do enjoy a car-cass. Hah. Anyway, I happened to find a GPS, and I fixed it. Mostly. I had it speak Russian to me.”

“That's brilliant,” I said, “except for the fact that you don't speak Russian.”

“Yeah, but, I mean, how hard could it be, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“I was like a deranged tourist. And, well, to sum it up because your cop brother is giving me looks here, I wound up in the river.” He breathed deeply. “Well, not in it. Near it.”

“But you're okay?” I asked. I wanted to ask about my car, but it seemed callous. At the same time, I was pissed at him. It was like he knew what would happen but did it anyway. Bertucci was emotional caffeine—semi-necessary for functioning but possibly hazardous for me in the long run.

“I'll pay you back,” Bertucci said, and his voice was solid. He meant it.

My father grabbed the phone from me, spoke to Dan, and hung up. “You realize this is not good, Alex,” he told me. I nodded. He was concerned about Bertucci, about my direction in life, about college acceptances that had yet to arrive, about my car that was crumpled at the bottom of Lowell Bridge.

“I'll fix it,” I said.

My father shook his head and made eye conversation with my mom. “I don't think you can.”

I stood there in the Circle's disintegrating lobby without Livvy, without Bertucci, without my car, and felt the night closing in around me, tension welling up in my stomach and my shoulders. My father had been right. I couldn't fix it. But I wasn't ready to give up, either.

23

Livvy

Taking deep breaths, I slid my pack off my back and propped open the heavy door—not that this provided much light, but at least would let me know how to escape.

The cry intensified.

“Hello?” I asked, though I realized an infant wouldn't answer.

Wahhh. Rahhh.

I took a few steps in, wishing I wasn't alone, terror scratching at my throat. “Bertucci?” I said. It was possible he was nearby, though as I said his name I realized I was angry. He'd had this idea that we could all be better, better versions of ourselves, which I sort of hoped was true. I didn't want to shed my entire being the way some girls did, forgetting that only the year before they had opinions, dressed however they wanted to, and weren't meshed into a crowd. But at the same time I never knew with Bertucci. And what if I wanted to hold onto things?

His ideas teetered between amazing and crazy, and even though I had worried about him, about what he'd do next year without Codman to do a reality check and me to get him to take a deep breath, I went along with a lot of the plans because they were fun. And they pushed me in ways I probably never would have been pushed. It wasn't just roller coasters I didn't like, but being unprepared, changing plans, sudden anything, really. So when Bertucci would detour us out of the blue it frightened me, but it was also exhilarating, like having limbs I didn't know I had, a smile I hadn't seen, or courage I never had to test before.

I stood half-enveloped in shadows, one foot still anchored in the lobby, knowing I needed to rescue whatever was by the stairs. Saliva caught in my throat and I coughed. The echo of my own voice made me flinch. I knew I would go; I just waited for a push of some kind, the same kind of push I'd had by the roller coaster with Codman and Bertucci, the same nudge he'd given me on the Day of the Meters.

I was pretty sure I'd be able to tell the Day of the Meters story happily one day, as a memory composed entirely of simple, youthful joy. But for now, I had to admit that looking back was complicated. I could see the memory begin to unfold, to unspool, to come apart like an expertly sliced onion, but before I could even allow myself to consider what any of the fucking layers meant and whether any of them wouldn't bring me more tears, I heard another pounding.

“Lissa?” I asked, even though I doubted she'd come back. Part of me wanted her to get the fuck out of the Circle, out of our lives, go off to her banal future and never look back. But part of me needed her to remember, like somehow the more people who held on to this part of our lives, the more it mattered. The noise continued. This time, the slamming wasn't the side door but the front window.

I stood there, torn between the crying noise and the pounding, unsure which way to move. Finally, I went with the pounding, jogging over to the window, furrowing my brow as I tried to see who was out there. At the side door, I yelled to the front.

“Over here! This way!” I waited. In a minute, a guy with a red baseball cap appeared.

“I have your order,” he said.

My mouth hung open. “Who called you?” I stared at his hat. A Slice from the Slice.

He shrugged. “I don't take the names, I just bring the orders.” He checked his rain-damp receipt. “Double mushroom?” He held the paper bag out to me, steam escaping from the boxes inside. I could smell the melted cheese.

I swallowed. “How much do I owe you?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “It's all taken care of. You know, free calzone to each Brookville grad?”

I took the bag and watched him leave. He must deliver food to all kinds of crazy scenes, I figured, if he didn't comment on this location. Then again, maybe he just didn't care. I leaned back on the white plaster interior column near the ticket booth and slid down, the bag on my lap. The calzone was perfect—crisp on the edges but gooey with melted cheese in the middle. Just like the double mushroom we always ordered. After wiping the oil on my jeans, I texted.
Thanks, Bertucci! Calzones r here!

He'd taken care of everything, I thought.

Almost everything.

As I ate, I thought back to the Day of the Meters, wishing he were with me so we could reminisce together.

“You realize, of course, people will think you've come unhinged,” Codman had told Bertucci as we stood outside of the used bookstore on Main and Brook. I'd wondered why people had sold their books—were they saving money? Had they cleaned house and gotten rid of stories they no longer needed? What about the birthday inscriptions, the valentines from old loves?

“Did you seriously think we were just out for a walk through town?” Bertucci asked. He'd worn green army pants, the kind with myriad pockets of various sizes. Each one bulged and made him look as though he had some terrible disease.